Sermon Title: High Anxiety
Sermon Text: Matthew 6:25-34
Sunday Evening, July 9, 2000
Scripture Introduction:
In his Gospel just prior to this particular section of Scripture, Matthew relays what Jesus said about giving to the poor, the way and why of our prayers, fasting, and just what we consider important. In this prior section, Jesus tells of what our motivation is to give, to pray, and to fast. Do we make ourselves look sacrificial when we do the things that we do? Are we sure that the next door neighbors is seeing us give to the person canvassing for a certain charity? Do we make a dramatic presentation of how we are affected by what we give up? Are we certain to make sure that the congregation hears us pray and that they are impressed with the way our petitions roll off of our lips? Just what do we consider important? More important than what we consider as important is the question of what God considers important.
Please join me in reading God’s Holy Word?
Scripture Reading: Matthew 6:25-34
25 "For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 "Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? 27 "And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? 28 "And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, 29 yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. 30 "But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! 31 "Do not worry then, saying, ’What will we eat?’ or ’What will we drink?’ or ’What will we wear for clothing?’ 32 "For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 "But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. 34 "So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Introduction: Looking at the Scripture that we just read brings three things to my mind
1. Just how much should we worry about our physical needs?
2. Where are we on God’s scale of importance in regards to the rest of His glorious creation?
3. We spend so much time on our priorities, what does God consider important?
As a member of the ME generation it becomes difficult to look at where we were at in the past and pinpoint where we began to seriously deviate from God’s plan for our lives as far as what is important. The “keeping up with the Jones’” mentality has been around far longer then I can remember and I think if we trace it back we will probably end up in the garden at the fall of man.
We look at the fashion trends and we are driven to be in style with the rest of the civilized world. Does fashion dictate utility in regards to what the clothes were designed for in the first place? I’m sorry, but if it becomes extremely cold outside and all I can find is a 1970’s polyester leisure suit, I’ll wear it gladly. I would much rather be comfortable then in style and most of the people that know me will attest to that.
With all the different things that we spend time fretting over, the things in the world around us, the things that our magnificent Creator has made, how do we rate in comparison with all of those things? If we go back to the account of the creation, perhaps we can see how God felt about us and I think most of us while we were living in sin find it is quite surprising that He still loves us just the same, although our behavior leaves a lot to be desired.
We all have our lists of things to accomplish, I know many men with spouses are familiar with what is called the honey-do list. It is an itemized list of things that are important to the women, according to her priorities. We all have lists and we usually list them from what needs doing the most to that task which is least crucial. The order of priority is based on the outlook of the person preparing the list. Multiple lists of things to do are also a fact of life, and we find ourselves prioritizing the persons that authored the list. Does this sound familiar to anyone? When we find ourselves in this position do we often pick and choose off of the different lists in an attempt to please everyone? Where on order of doing these things do we put the contents of the list that God has laid upon our hearts?
Let’s go to the Lord in prayer!
POINT 1: Just how much should we worry about our physical needs? Do not be worried about your life. Now we can take this section of Scripture as it is and say we needn’t care about what goes on or what happens to our society or for that matter what is happening or what we are doing to our body. That isn’t the case at all in this section of Scripture. We are to care about things; in fact, it is our duty to be concerned. There is a point that we can cross and go from a genuine concern to an obsessive worry. This can become a state of mind where we are almost totally incapacitated. If we allow ourselves to enter into this depressing state of worry, perhaps we are forgetting about some of the promises that God has given us. We must first however consider verse 24 of this chapter
"No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.
Are we putting the items that we are worried about attaining on a higher level then we ought?
We read in the 55th Psalm in verse 22
Cast your burden upon the LORD and He will sustain you; He will never allow the righteous to be shaken.
And we read also in Paul’s letter to the Church of Philippi in verse 6
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
And also in 1 Peter chapter 5 and verses 6 and 7,
Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.
We read in this Scripture that God will care for our needs. When we assume the state of worrying, doesn’t that in many respects say that we doubt God’s ability to provide for our needs. We have to remember that there is quite a difference between needs and wants but we will tackle that some other time.
Let’s look at some of the things that we find ourselves worrying over:
I’m going to go out on a limb and make a comment on these particular worries in our lives and I think we have unnecessarily allowed these to become worries where they have no place occupying that high of a priority in our lives.
What you will eat: We are a country that is blessed with plenty and the younger generation with a few exceptions, has not experienced any kind of famine such as is common in many countries on this Earth or in the times when the Bible was written, or for that matter any time in the past. We become overly concerned over issues such as where we will eat; are we going to eat at Hardee’s, McDonald’s, Burger King, or Bonanza. We become overly concerned over what we will eat; will we eat steak, prime rib, or Iowa Chops. We allow food to have to great an influence over our lives. I can tell by my waistline that I have allowed it to great a place in my life.
What you will drink: Does anyone drink water anymore? Has anyone ever seen the terror on a kid’s face when they realize that there is no pop in the refrigerator? At the same time as we worry about the supply of what we wish to drink do we often take what we need to drink for granted. In the Great Flood of 93, there were many in the City of Des Moines that went without water on demand for a great length of time. For those that drink water there is also the fancy water that comes in the fancy bottles with fancy labels, just what will we drink?
What you will put on: Like I mentioned earlier, I am not a slave to fashion so I tend not to worry about what I should wear. Here again we find a drive to buy that, which doesn’t necessarily fulfill the need to clothe, but fulfills the desire to wear certain name brand labels. Now don’t take this in the wrong way, there are many of the name brands that are superior in quality over others, and if they last longer and we find them well worth the investment, then it is only good stewardship on our part to purchase this brand. Too many among us find ourselves magnetically driven to a brand that is IN with everyone else instead of considering what actually has the greatest value in terms of durability.
[There is a long list of the different things that we are worried about, and the lists are as diverse as the personalities of the different people. What do we see as important when it comes to our day to day survival? What do we see as more important, our physical or spiritual needs or more aptly labeled, what is more important, immediate gratification or our long term spiritual security? What does God see as the important things for our lives? Much of this can be answered when we look at how important we are in the eyes of God as opposed to all else that we see around us.]
POINT 2: Where are we on a scale of importance in regards to the rest of God’s glorious creation? Let us look at two verses in this particular section of Scripture.
"Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?
And:
"But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith!
Now, let’s take a look back into the Old Testament in the book of Genesis at the creation account. What do we find in the very first chapter of Genesis? In verse 26
Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."
God gave us the greatest gift of all, and that is life, now who are we to even think that He wouldn’t help maintain our lives? It becomes pretty straight-forward, God has set us above the rest of His creation and He cares for al of their needs, so He will supply all of our daily needs, however we must trust Him in this as well.
Let’s take a look at one of the greatest examples of trust in God in the Scripture, the story of Abraham supplying Isaac as a sacrifice to the Lord:
First, we have the Lord Telling Abraham to take his only son and offer him up as a sacrifice to the Lord. Is it recorded that Abraham was overly concerned? No instead it is recorded in the Scripture as follows:
So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son; and he split wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place of which God had told him.
Abraham instead of being paralyzed with worry about what might be, obeyed the Lord and went to the place where God told him to go. Is our faith and trust that strong? Now what do we read next?
On the third day Abraham raised his eyes and saw the place from a distance.
It took Abraham three days journey to reach his destination. Can you imagine the faith and trust that it took to follow the instructions to sacrifice his promised son and then think about it for three days? Without the trust that he had in the Lord’s promise, he would have been overcome with worry. Abraham knew that God wouldn’t go back on His promise or He wouldn’t be God, and God promised him descendants as numerous as the stars. If Isaac was taken out of the picture, then the promise could not be fulfilled. In regards to providing for the birds of the air and how that relates to us what are we told? The Scripture tells us:
Are you not worth much more than they?
In regards to the way that God provides for the flowers of the field, we read in verse
30 "But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith!
That very last phrase sums up quite well why we spend so much time and energy worrying about things that in the long run, count for very little, You of little faith! Isn’t that a problem that many of us suffer from?
[So we find that we are overly concerned about what shouldn’t really trouble us and as a result we are probably not giving enough time to that over which we should be concerned. As a result of all of this our priorities are all out of whack. We need to be able to look past what we physically desire to the point of distraction and seek what the Lord would want for us instead.]
POINT 3: We spend so much time on our priorities, what does God consider important? Let’s take a look at some of the common worldly worries that many face each and every day.
We read in verses 33 and 34:
"But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. "So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
We read in 1 Timothy 4:8:
for bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.
What are we to be pursuing? His kingdom and His righteousness is what the Scripture tells us we are to pursue. What will be the result of seeking after His kingdom and righteousness? The Scripture tells us that all these things will be added to you.
Does that mean we will get that mansion that we always wanted? I kind of doubt it. Does that mean we will get that bright red shiny corvette with the leather interior and the 100-watt per channel CD System? I kind of doubt it. Will we finally become rich? I doubt that too. What it does mean is that we will have what we need and that what we have will bring us the satisfaction that we desire, His kingdom and His righteousness.
It is interesting when we look at the following section of Scripture, . "So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Take a moment at some of the things that caused you great worry in the past, how much of it actually caused you problems? It is really surprising that much of which causes us grief actually never ends up causing us the grief that we expected. We spent a lot of time fretting about things that would never happen. Oh how we could have better spent that time.
Conclusion:
Just how much should we worry about our physical needs? We see the results all around us of those that fail to take proper health precautions, those that are able to eat nutritious food, however they choose not to. We know the hazards of smoking, drinking, drugs, and unprotected sex, and yet we so many that could care less of the effects. We know the need to be careful yet there are those that are reckless and could care less for their own safety. These are all-important issues, and yet that isn’t the topic for discussion in this particular text. It is about the priority we place on our worldly wants and desires. Are we allowing ourselves to enter a state of high anxiety over our material wants when we should be graciously contented with the meeting of our needs by our Heavenly Father? Whose desires are first and foremost on our list, our own physical wants or the spiritual desires that the Father has in mind for us? Perhaps if we look deeper at this question we should possibly ask who is more important, ourselves or the Father who created us?
Where are we on God’s scale of importance in regards to the rest of His glorious creation? Have we ever considered just how much our Lord really cares for us? It is written in Revelation 3:20,
’Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.
Just think, we are the ones in need of His grace and He cares so much for each and every one of us that He will stand and wait and initiate if needed. Where does that put us in order of importance with the remainder of creation?
We spend so much time on our priorities, what does God consider important?
Ac 2:21 ’AND IT SHALL BE THAT EVERYONE WHO CALLS ON THE NAME OF THE LORD WILL BE SAVED.’
Ac 16:31 They said, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household."
Romans 10:9 that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved;
Romans 10:13 for "WHOEVER WILL CALL ON THE NAME OF THE LORD WILL BE SAVED."
Ephesians 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;
What does the Lord find important? He finds it important that all men be saved. What kind of commitment did He have for this?
Philippians 2:8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Where is your commitment in regards to your relationship with the Lord today? Are you satisfied with this relationship or does it need to improve? Have you let it slip away and perhaps you need to find your way back or do you want to begin that relationship with our Lord Jesus today?
